


Brotherhood

by KLStarre



Category: Skulduggery Pleasant - Derek Landy
Genre: Character Study, Gen, POV Second Person, Pre-Canon, Trans Character, Trans Male Character, the war - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-11
Updated: 2016-08-11
Packaged: 2018-08-08 03:42:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7742023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KLStarre/pseuds/KLStarre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“We watch out for each other, Saracen,” he says. “Do you think you are the only one with something to hide?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brotherhood

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wildeisms](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildeisms/gifts), [LockedInFantasy](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=LockedInFantasy).



            When you join the Dead Men, you are terrified. Not of the possibility of death; you have embraced that possibility long ago. No, you are terrified to join the Dead Men because you know that it is hard to truly see _yourself_ as a man sometimes, so how are you meant to convince six others? What if they see you as the woman that you’re not, that you’ve spent years trying to escape – what then?

            A man appears in front of you and you are startled out of your reverie; you have been walking for a long time, long enough that you have to look around again in order to take note of your surroundings. The scenery is sparse, the dirt path reaching for miles in either direction and a haze of dust turning the occasional tree into nothing but a blurry outline.

            The man, though, the man is interesting. He wears a perfectly tailored suit despite the heat and the dust, and a hat titled low over his face, but it can’t be doing much to block the sun, because there is a bullet hole ripped in the brim just where it crosses his vision. His hair is the kind of flaming red that reminds you of the days when you thought you wanted to be an Elemental.

            “You’re Skulduggery Pleasant,” you say, speaking for the first time in hours, your voice a dehydrated croak (and maybe that is for the best, because you never quite learned how to disguise your voice).

            He inclines his head to you, and for a moment you think that is the only acknowledgement he is going to give you. But then he says “Saracen Rue?” in a voice like velvet, and if he takes any issue with the name (it is traditionally masculine, after all, but your hair is short and you are dressed to the height of traditional masculinity and it is _your_ name your name your name) he makes no sign of it.

            You nod.

            “How did you know to find us? We weren’t exactly open about the fact that we were recruiting.”

            This is the test, you know, the way for him to discern if you are worthy of joining them. But you don’t want to give too much away, and you want to keep at least some modicum of control of the situation, and so you say, “I know things.” And you leave it at that.

            He blinks slowly, but other than that he doesn’t react, reaching inside his coat and throwing you the gun that he pulls out. You catch it without thinking, thumb the safety on as he looks at you. You have no combat magic, and so you are good with guns. That is one thing about you that you are comfortable with him knowing. “I already have one of these,” you say, gesturing with it – a Winchester, you think – to the holster on your right thigh.

            “I know,” he says, and your eyes are drawn to the long barreled pistols that he carried. “But that one’s better, trust me.”

            And maybe it’s his voice, or maybe it’s that he looks like he could face down a stampede of elephants with nothing but his guns and his magic (he’s an Elemental, you think, the knowledge appearing in your mind as it does, sometimes, when you need it), but you do. You nod, and he turns away, walking down the dust path. “Our camp is right up here,” he throws back over his shoulder, as if he has every assurance in the world that you will follow him.

            He’s right, of course. You will come to learn over the decades that the man who calls himself Skulduggery Pleasant is right far too often, especially about people. It becomes a game among you and the men you choose as brothers; to try to do things that he does not predict of you. Eventually, you will become good at this game, maybe even the best. But for now you are still young, still inexperienced, and you trail after Pleasant like a duckling, lacking all the forced bravado that life has forced you to possess. You don’t want to build this new life out of lies.

            The camp, it turns out, is not “right up here”. Maybe Pleasant is testing you to see if you’ll complain, or maybe he’s just somehow oblivious to the fact that the two of you are wading through mud and the sky looks like it is about to rain hell upon you. It is hours, you think, before you step onto solid dry land again, into a clearing surrounded on two sides by dense forest, the third a deadly looking cliff face _. Of course_ , you think, mind working quickly in case they ask you questions, _if one were a truly good elemental than then the cliff face could serve as an emergency exit if the camp were compromised._ Otherwise, the only to what appears to be the camp is through the mud. It is good planning; you are more than willing to admit that.

            You turn to tell that to Pleasant, hoping to earn yourself respect for noticing so quickly, but he has disappeared. Despite your powers telling you that, yes, this is the camp to which you were meant to be taken, there is nothing in the clearing but dead grass and charred firewood.

            You almost panic. You almost reach for your gun (the gun you brought with you, the one you trust, not Pleasant’s Winchester). But your brain is working faster than your body as always, running through the list of Dead Men and their powers, information that has arrived in your brain without any indication as to how it got there. _Bespoke, elemental. Shudder, gist. Ravel, elemental. Vex, energy-thrower. Pleasant, elemental. Hopeless._ Oh.

            As soon as you reach Hopeless in your list of names, you realize what’s going on. Hopeless is the least known of the unknown. You have never been able to get a straight answer as to what he looks like, as to what he does, but now you know that he is an illusionist who pretends to be a shapeshifter. He must have disguised the camp and disguised Pleasant, turning them invisible to the outside eye. For the first time, you realize for dangerous these people are. You know many things, but not everything, and any one of them could have killed you in any number of ways while you stood here, thinking, and there would have been nothing you could have done about it. Guns are useless against an unseen enemy, and your magic is useless in a fight. It was foolishness to think that you could come here and be of some use. It was foolishness to think it was even worth trying.

            But you are far older than you look, and if you have learned nothing in all that time, it is that it is never safe to give up. There is no magic to call on to help you, and so you thing, assessing your surroundings, replaying the past five minutes in your head to try to glean some hint of what you should do. If you make it clear that you have figured them out, will they reveal themselves? Or…

            Despite yourself, a grin spreads across your face. Could it really be that simple? Would they really make it that east?

            You take a step forward, and then another, three four five in quick succession and as you near the center of the clearing the world ripples around you and your heart skips a beat. Instincts kick in and you look behind you before looking in front, checking that you are not being followed (or at least that’s what you tell yourself. Maybe you’re just afraid to leave the world outside the war behind). The mud path has blurred, looking like something from a child’s drawing, and you are tempted to turn back, to see what would happen if you stuck your hand outside the barrier.

            Before you can, you hear a noise, like a twig cracking underfoot, and turn around reluctantly, making a mental note to explore the magic keeping the camp hidden later. If there is a later.

            In front of you stand six men. Six men whom you know, without a doubt, are the Dead Men. Before you even register them, you are tense, your gun reaching for your gun for comfort. You try to stand a little taller, clench your jaw to make your face look more angular, breathe in slowly to calm yourself.

            Except –

            One of them, dark-skinned like yourself, with beautiful golden eyes, is wearing a bathrobe. Another, paler, is wearing pants so tight that they look difficult to walk in, and his blonde hair is meticulously styled. For a moment you are so confused that you almost miss Pleasant stepping forward to make introductions. He, at least, looks as he did before, professional and deadly.

            “Mr. Rue,” he says, “So glad you could make it.” As if you hadn’t been following him for the past two hours, as if he hadn’t purposefully disappeared.

            “As am I,” you respond, doing your best to match his relaxed posture, his air of command. “Who are these gentlemen?” You tilt your head to indicate the six men to whim you have not yet been introduced. You could figure out who they were, probably, if pressed, but you don’t want to pay your hand too soon. These men are deadly, despite appearances, and you will take whatever advantage you can get. If they don’t know your powers, so much the better.

            Pleasant cocks his head, long hair spilling onto his shoulder, as if he knows that you are hiding something but is willing to let you keep secrets for a little while longer. It makes you uncomfortable, you say the least. You have built a life around others not knowing your secrets.

            “Here we have the illustrious Erskine Ravel,” he says, gesturing to the man in the bathrobe, and you nod politely, offering your hand to shake.

            He doesn’t take it, instead stepping forward and embracing you tightly, slapping you on the the back cheerfully. “Welcome!” he exclaims, his voice giving no indication that he is a soldier greeting someone to whom he may soon have to entrust his life. Instead he sounds like he is greeting an old drinking buddy, and, despite your best interests, you find yourself liking him.

                Next, Pleasant gestures to the man whom you’ve already discerned must be Hopeless and confirms your guess. Hopeless has an ugly scar across his face, the kind that you can tell happened long ago but will never fully heal. That is the only thing you can be sure of about his appearance, because his face is constantly shifting – from black to white to old to young to soft to sharp. It settles for a moment as he nods to you, smiling, and then flits away again. You don’t know if it’s intentional or just a side effect of his power, but either way, you can respect it. You understand wanting to hide what you look like from others. And there’s a war on, after all.

            The third man in the line-up, the one with the leggings, steps forward to introduce himself. “Dexter Vex,” he says, grinning, and you find yourself grinning back. Even without the distraction that is his legs, you decide that you like this man. His face is soft right now, and welcoming, but something about his eyes and the crease between his eyebrows tells you that he has had a hard life, harder even than just the war. That is one thing you can understand. So you smile back at him, resisting the urge to hug him, too; he doesn’t look like something that can be touched.

            “My oldest friend, Ghastly Bespoke,” Pleasant says, wresting control back from Vex and introducing you to the next of these strange, strange men. It is harder than you would have thought for you to keep the shock from your face when you really focus on him. He is darker than you, and he has deep laughter lines, but none of that is what shocks you. You have heard of him of course, heard of Bespoke and his scars and his tailoring, but stories did nothing to prepare you for the destruction of his face. He nods to you, and you nod back, but it is difficult to tear your eyes away as the last Dead Man steps forward.

            He is tall and thin and pale, and his hair is long and black, framing his face in a way that you have never seen before. “I am Anton Shudder,” he says, and, against your will, you take a half-step back. “There men are my brothers, despite their ridiculousness” – here he glances at Ravel in his bathrobe – “and I will not hesitate to kill to protect them. So if you are here to do us harm, to infiltrate our ranks and kill us all, then I would recommend leaving now. If, for some reason, you have legitimately decided to join a group of suicidal maniacs who call themselves the Dead Men, then welcome. I hope you live long enough to regret it.”

            Out of the corner of your eye, you see Pleasant and Bespoke rolling their eyes at each other, as if this is a speech that they have heard many times before, and that gives you the courage to say, “I’m not here to kill anyone.”

            Shudder nods, face never changing, but Ravel laughs. “Sorry, Saracen, but if that’s the truth, you might be in the wrong place. Haven’t you heard? There’s a war on.”

            You’re not sure how to respond, but Vex laughs too - a real laugh, not a mocking one - and after a second you join in. You are still on edge, still hyperaware of every move you make, but you feel yourself relaxing.

            Maybe you can be a Dead Man after all.

∞

                        A couple of nights later, the seven of you are gathered around a campfire, discussing strategy and life and mocking each other. You are seated between Vex and Hopeless, and you’re not sure whether to be happy about that or not. Despite your original thoughts on Vex, these are the two whom you have been least able to read. Vex acts open and cheerful, but he has yet to say anything about his past, not even a throwaway comment about his parents or a child or a lover who he wants to go home to. Even Pleasant, whom you had pegged as the silent type, has mentioned his wife and his child with surprising warmth.

            Hopeless, well…it is hard to read the face of someone whose face is constantly changing, and it is hard to know the mind of someone who can conceal anything with a flick of his finger. But he seems kind enough, and you suppose it could be worse. You could have been stuck trying to make conversation with Shudder, who has yet to speak more than five words in a row to you.

            As the fire starts to burn down, Pleasant, from across the circle, stands up, adjusting his hat as he does. You have yet to see him remove it. He gestures to the fire and the flames go out, leaving the dark to surround you, lit by nothing but stars and dying embers.

            “Men, we move out tomorrow. It’s going to be a long day, so get some sleep. Ravel, I’m talking to you. Do not go down to town to look for fun, we need you functional.”

            Ravel laughs as Pleasant continues.

            “Rue and Hopeless, you two have first watch, wake Vex and me in two hours.”

            You nod even though he can’t see you, and you feel Hopeless beside you rising to his feet. As the rest of the men disperse you stand to join him, but before you can leave to go to your watch, Hopeless bends down and says, quietly, “If you want, I can disguise your voice for you. And anything else you want to change or hide.”

            Involuntarily, you jerk away. Even though he didn’t say it outright, it is obvious what he is implying. He knows. And if he knows than it is only a matter of time before everyone else knows, too. You need to go. You need to get out of here. You were a fool to think that anything could become of this. “I have to go,” you say, perhaps louder than intended, and even though it is dark you can feel the sadness on his face (or maybe you just know, maybe you just know that he is sad for you).

            “We watch out for each other, Saracen,” he says, but if he knows then why is he still using your real name? “Do you think you are the only one with something to hide?”

            He remains beside you for a moment, and then two, perhaps waiting to see if you will take him up on his offer, but you don’t respond, and after a while, he leaves. Ghosts off to take watch.

            And after a while you, too, walk off to the edge of camp. After a while, you, too, melt into the night.

            ∞

            The first time you truly feel like a Dead Man is months later, after your first major battle together. No one is injured seriously, but as you limp back to your camp, having defeated a hundred men between the seven of you, it feels like you have sacrificed the last of your innocence (not that you had much left). And you fall a little bit in love with these men who can fight a war and still find things to laugh about, who can grin as they count their wounds, who can throw themselves in front of a bullet for one another without a thought.

            That night, during your shared watch, you finally go to Hopeless.

            The next morning, if anyone notices that your voice is deeper and your face is more angular, they don’t mention it.

            You are brothers, after all, and you watch out for each other.

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Birthday Trist!! Ily I guess


End file.
